


Unpracticed

by audreycritter



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Kidnapping, Young!Bruce, alfred is just trying to be a good butlerdad, bruce is a little punk but that's okay, bruce is sullen, have some feels maybe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-31 08:46:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12128823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audreycritter/pseuds/audreycritter
Summary: Before Bruce was Batman, he still lived in Gotham. And Gotham was already a dangerous place, especially for a boy worth a steep ransom.Or, a story in which Alfred and Bruce deal with a kidnapping for the first time, before they were just a fact of life for trained members of the Wayne family.





	Unpracticed

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to jerseydevious for enjoying headcanons about Bruce being hurt as much as I do, and thank you to Cerusee for reading over, feedback, and encouragement during my "I have not written in these twelve long years" panic.

The ambulance lights flashed a strobing blue in the gray evening fog, casting weird shadows across the warehouse parking lot. Alfred Pennyworth was out of the car almost before the engine shut off, striding with unusual urgency toward the ambulance.

His heart skipped a beat in aching relief when a few of the milling police officer bodies stepped out of the way and he could see him, see  _Bruce_  sitting on the back fender of the ambulance wrapped in a blanket but upright and conscious.

Alfred didn’t slow until he was right in front of him, tipping the boy’s chin up with two fingers and peering into the gray-blue eyes. The sullen, cold expression flickered into brief and open anxiety, then shuttered back into something closed off.

“Are you alright?” Alfred asked, a hand on each shoulder while tilted his head back to look Bruce up and down.

Bruce jerked his head to the side, glaring at the pavement, and muttered, “I’m fine.”

He kicked the heel of his booted foot against the ambulance, in a restless gesture. Alfred noted they were the black combat boots Bruce somehow kept managing to swap his school oxfords for, despite Alfred’s best efforts, but for once Alfred didn’t care. He wanted to sweep the boy into a hug but restrained himself. A display would help neither of them.

Bruce rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes, which were ringed dark with exhaustion and eyeliner he  _also_ kept smuggling to school with him in blatant disregard of the dress code. It was far more smeared than usual and Alfred lifted a handkerchief from his pocket and offered it.

The teen glanced at it and then up at him, his brow bent in angry creases and his face completely dry. “I said I’m  _fine_. I’m just tired.”

“Then let’s get you home,” Alfred said, tucking the cotton square back into his pocket.

“I was just about to recommend that,” a voice said from behind them. “We can get a statement tomorrow.”

Alfred turned to see Captain Gordon approaching, a styrofoam cup of coffee in his hand. He’d been the one to call the station, where Alfred was waiting and cursing himself for ever letting Bruce out of his sight.

“You okay, son?” Gordon asked Bruce with a nod, and Bruce met the question with momentary fading of the piercing, chilly gaze.

“Fine,” he said stiffly, with a smile that began and ended on his lips. “Thank you, Captain.”

He had manners, at least.

And he was alive and in one piece— Alfred could take another ten years of sulking attitude with those things true, after the hell of the past nine hours.

“We got ‘em both,” Captain Gordon said, the coffee cup rising as if in salute to the squad car where two men sat handcuffed in the back. “Word is young Mr. Wayne here gave ‘em hell.”

If Gordon noticed Alfred’s raised eyebrow, he ignored it. Bruce pulled the blanket more tightly around himself and wouldn’t meet Alfred’s gaze.

“They were just mad they couldn’t scare me,” he said. The heel of his boot kicked again, a few times in a row.

“Red Chief indeed,” Alfred said in a low tone, half to himself, as he studied the men in the back of the squad car. In the dim lighting, it was hard to make out their expressions but he still had the desire to bloody both their noses and knock some teeth out. He doused the flames of his anger and looked back to Bruce, with a slight motion of his hand toward the car.

Bruce had a faint smirk tugging one side of his mouth when Alfred looked at him again. It vanished quickly and he pushed the blanket off his back.

Beneath it, his uniform was a mess. It was streaked with dirt, the tie gone, and the broadcloth ripped on one side. His jacket was nowhere to be seen. The sleeves of his shirt were shoved back and Alfred caught his arm, his fingers near the gauze bandages.

“You said you were alright,” he said. Bruce yanked his arm away and rolled his sleeves back down, leaving them unbuttoned.

“The EMT put something on them. It’s just from the cable ties.”

The scowl with which Bruce said this was directed at Alfred, as if he were annoyed it had been pointed out. He brushed past him and stalked toward the car, stumbling once in his untied boots.

Alfred cast a glare toward the squad car and Gordon, beside him, gave a small and helpless shrug.

“We’ll file every charge we can, Mr. Pennyworth,” he said, his thumb fiddling with the plastic edge of the coffee cup. “It’s, uh, not a…not ideal by any stretch, but a good outcome as far as these things go.”

“These  _things_  shouldn’t ‘go’ at all,” Alfred snapped, whirling on him.

Captain Gordon didn’t flinch or back up. He shrugged one shoulder again and crumpled the cup in his hand. “You won’t find a man in Gotham who agrees more.”

In the evening noise of the docks only blocks away, they were quiet and then Alfred sighed.

“I’m sorry, Captain. It’s been a long day.”

“I don’t blame you in the least,” Gordon said simply. “Get that kid home, and get some rest. I’ll come by myself in the morning and take care of things personally.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Alfred said, shaking the offered hand. “Truly.”

And Alfred walked back to the car where his young charge sat waiting in the backseat, his head against the tinted window and arms crossed tight over his chest. Alfred sat in the driver’s seat and wrapped his fingers around the steering wheel. He let them tighten until the knuckles were white, sinking all the stress and worry of the past nine hours into the grip.

Ten hours since the school had rung to inquire if Bruce Wayne was absent from his first class for a reason.

Nine hours since the kidnappers had rung with their price for Bruce’s safe return.

Somewhere, between dropping him off at the front gate and the start of Bruce’s school day, they’d taken him and nearly killed Alfred in the process. He and Bruce had both been educated on what to do in a kidnapping situation, Bruce’s position being what it was, but it was the first time they’d ever been required to use it. Alfred could nearly  _feel_  the years it was cutting off the tail end of his life, sitting in the Manor full of officers and then later the Precinct office just waiting.

And waiting.

They’d been lucky in the end; the kidnappers had been sloppy. They were hardly masterminds and made mistake after mistake, but realizing this over the course of those hours  _before_  it was over had made it worse.

A professional might hold his temper, damage a finger or an ear or know when to cut his losses. An amateur was more likely to lash out in guilt or rage and pull a trigger that had never been part of the plan, or knock a head with too much force and flee.

He tilted the rear view mirror to check on Bruce. He regretted, already, not embracing him on sight. Even if the boy would have gone stiff with resistance, he likely needed it.

The black-edged eyes were shadowed beneath with exhaustion. He still looked ready to fight the world at a moment’s notice and he was curling into himself now, the thick rubber tread of his boots digging into the leather seat while he sat with his arms wrapped around his knees, his seatbelt entirely ineffective at the angle he held.

“Proper posture, if you would, Master Bruce,” Alfred said calmly, turning the key in the ignition. Good bearing be damned, he was far more concerned with getting him home alive and keeping him that way.

There was an indignant huff from the back and feet slamming on the floor of the car. Bruce slouched, his elbow propped on the door and his chin in his hand.

“Better?” he demanded of the window.

“Much, thank you,” Alfred said. He hesitated, for a moment, his hand on the stick shift. Then he swallowed. “Might I ask what happened? This morning? Today?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Bruce said, scrubbing his hair into a mess. He seemed pleased with the effect, regarding his reflection in the dark glass. “It doesn’t matter. The police will ask tomorrow anyway.”

They drove home in silence, Alfred thinking the whole time how he ought to say something consoling, something reassuring, but never settling on quite the right words. Bruce propped his feet on the back of the driver’s seat halfway home and Alfred let it slide.

Dinner was an equally silent affair, served late and warmed in the microwave from a reserve meal for busy days. Bruce pushed things around with his fork and answered questions in monosyllables, neither of which were particularly unusual behavior as of late.

But Alfred didn’t miss the jumpiness, the flinching at sudden sounds, the way Bruce shrank back in his seat when startled by a dropped fork. He took in these details with an ache in his chest and a dozen times almost asked questions.

It was late and Bruce excused himself to go to bed, and Alfred was both all too happy to send him and staunchly resistant to the idea of Bruce where he couldn’t see him.

They both would benefit from sleep, and in the morning there would be a visit from the police and Alfred would need to take him to see Leslie, just in case, and then the matter of a counseling appointment to schedule even if it would likely be met with iron resistance. The school would need to be updated, security strengthened; they’d push again for more protocol, perhaps a bodyguard until tension eased.

Weary in a way that made him feel every day of his age, he cleaned up from dinner and then trudged up the stairs to check on Bruce and collect the ruined uniform. It was in a balled pile by the door and Bruce was already in bed, buried under a pile of blankets; thick headphone cords snaked out from beneath the pillow and his ears were engulfed by the thick circles of black foam. He cleared his throat but there was no answer; he hoped from the steady breathing that Bruce was asleep, and retreated.

For a long, unmoving moment, Alfred stood in the laundry room between a basket and a wastebin staring at a smear of blood on the cuff of the shirt. A shuddering breath accompanied the rustle of the plastic bag when he tossed the whole uniform into the bin and he leaned against the washer with a hand pressed over his hot and tear-filled eyes.

When he felt suitably composed, he reminded himself over and over to be  _grateful_ : Bruce was alive, they’d recovered him reasonably undamaged. He was not ending the day in any variation of a dozen nightmares that were real possibilities from the moment they’d snatched Bruce and driven off with him.

And wondering how much Bruce had struggled, not knowing if he’d cried for help or not, nearly kept him pressed against the washer for support again. He resolved to abandon any reconstructions of imagination until after the police visit, where perhaps Bruce himself would clarify.

He went to bed and didn’t sleep.

The sheets felt like a trap, like hateful restraints, and sometime after midnight he threw them off and got up to make a cup of tea.

He left most of the kitchen lights off while the kettle warmed. Steam scorched his fingers when he poured the water, and he swore and glared at the reddened spot reproachfully.

The smell of rose hips had barely filled the room when Alfred gave up any pretense of calm or self-assurance and abandoned the tea. The carpeted stairs, sturdy and thick oak beneath the plush red, did not betray him with groans or creaks as he climbed.

All he wanted, all he  _needed_ , was to pause at the bedroom door and make sure that Bruce was there, sleeping as he ought to be.

A twist in his gut was the premonition that he was wrong. He resisted it as mere fear until he was outside the room, hand on the knob, and could make out ugly choking noises from within. They were dulled by the door and the distance, but were unmistakably sounds of upset.

The door flew open under the press of his hand; he did not bother with knocking. Every light in the room was on and the bed was empty aside from a twisted tangle of blankets.

He found Bruce in the adjoining bathroom, retching what little dinner he’d eaten into the bowl of the toilet. The boy’s shoulders, the ones that had broadened over the past summer as he’d shot up to look far more than his sixteen years, shook as he bent over.

Alfred wet a cloth at the sink and crouched beside him and rubbed circles on Bruce’s back, a thing he had not done for…years. Too many years. When had he stopped such small things? The youth, for all his height and bearing, was still such a  _boy_.

After a few moments of dry heaving, Bruce sucked in a breath that ended in a ragged sob. He pushed himself back onto the bathroom floor and wept into his sleeves, crossed over his tucked up legs.

Earlier, Alfred had not wrapped him in his arms and he had regretted it. He didn’t hesitate now, sitting on the cold tiles with him, and Bruce kept his face buried but leaned into him. The weeping turned into gasping, struggling attempts for oxygen and Alfred’s own chest ached while he kept his tone even.

“There, there. You’re alright, Master Bruce. In and out, slow does it.”

The breathing evened out for a few seconds and Bruce, taut with tension under Alfred’s embrace, shuddered.

“They had guns, Al,” he said, his voice starting low but turning shrill and a touch hysterical. “They had guns.”

Alfred tightened his hold and exhaled, wishing he  _had_  smashed some faces while the men were restrained in the squad car. He tucked Bruce’s dark hair under his chin and said quiet things that didn’t mean anything except a desire to calm the boy, who was still trembling and making a high, groaning noise.

When Bruce grew still except for the occasional heave of his chest, Alfred shifted his numbed legs. Bruce’s arms snaked around his waist in a heartbeat and Alfred stopped moving.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Alfred said quietly. “But perhaps we might both be more comfortable if we relocate?”

“I’m sorry,” Bruce mumbled through another sob, the crying starting anew. He cried like he didn’t know how to stop, going in an instant from sounding like it was being dragged out of him to helpless flooding of the gates of his self-control. “I’m sorry,” he moaned into the flannel of Alfred’s pajama shirt. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“It isn’t your fault,” Alfred said, a frigid horror filling him. “Of course it isn’t your fault.”

“I’ve been leaving school,” Bruce persisted, voice hoarse. “In the morning, before class. I go to the café and get coffee. They must have noticed. They were waiting for me. I’m sorry, Al, I’m sorry.”

“Hush,” Alfred said, his fingers in Bruce’s damp hair as he held the boy to his chest.

Perhaps it was unwise, the forays out away from school property, but it also made him feel ill that something as simple and youthful in rebellion as sneaking off to get coffee carried such risks. He’d spent so long working to make Bruce feel safe again, to have it undone by  _this_  enraged him.

“I’m not upset with you, Bruce,” Alfred said, when the weeping edged toward hysteria again. “I swear it. I was frightened, terribly frightened for you. I can only imagine what a wretched day it must have been.”

The more he spoke, the more settled Bruce became, so he kept talking. He talked about the Manor foyer filled with police officers, the sandwich someone had offered him at the station, a time he’d gotten lost in Hong Kong when he’d gone off base on his own.

When Bruce was so still Alfred thought he’d fallen asleep, he gave him a gentle squeeze. “To bed, young sir.”

“No,” Bruce said, shaking his head. “No. I don’t want to.”

“Downstairs and hot chocolate, then,” Alfred amended. “We’ll walk for the mail after. I didn’t go for it yesterday and the stroll will do us both some good.”

“I don’t want to go to school,” Bruce mumbled, his limp leaning and monotone bearing witness to exhaustion he seemed determined not to acknowledge.

“No, I don’t think you ought,” Alfred said, leaving off the visit to Leslie and the discussion about counseling for later. It would be a dreadful row— he could almost hear it now— and so it could wait.

There was a soft sigh of relief and Bruce pulled away to stand up. He stood staring at his own socked feet while Alfred joined him and led the way out of the bathroom.

In the kitchen, Bruce wordlessly poured out the cold tea and washed the cup while Alfred readied mugs and cocoa and then whisked together the dry ingredients for banana bread. He handed Bruce a few bananas and a masher.

Alfred chopped walnuts while Bruce pulverized banana with more force than was probably necessary, but overall his silence was far more sedate than it had been over dinner. It lacked agitation, even as Bruce stood a few inches closer to Alfred than usual while he worked.

The bread baked while they sipped steaming hot chocolate, side by side at the kitchen table. When it finished, Alfred set it to cool and they put on shoes and jackets over their pajamas from the foyer closet. Later, there would be time to insist on proper dress. For now, Alfred didn’t want to break the fragile peace that had settled over the house.

“Be right back,” Bruce muttered from the threshold of the side door. He vanished and Alfred waited.

A minute passed and Alfred could hear him in the kitchen, the clatter of a drawer opening and shutting.

“Ow,” Bruce exclaimed, right as he rounded the corner into view again. He was passing a piece of banana bread from one hand to the other and trying to take bites without letting it rest on any finger for too long. “I like it really hot,” he said, around a mouthful of bread, to Alfred’s raised brow.

They stepped out into the dawn fog together and within minutes were making progress down the lane. Bruce offered half the thick slice of bread to Alfred, who declined and said he would wait. Bruce finished it off in another two bites.

The morning was not too chilly, and the world felt like it was wrapped in soft cloth. The fog was dense enough that it was easy to believe the Manor existed on an island, apart from every other place.

Halfway, Alfred turned to say something, and Bruce was gone. There was a moment of panic before he spotted him, ten feet back and off the lane, halfway up a tree. Alfred stopped and a few minutes later, Bruce clambered back down and caught up with him, his hands jammed in his pockets.

“I found a robin’s nest,” he said, sounding pleased. “Three eggs.”

Alfred peered back at the tree and just barely made out the twiggy brown of a nest; he had no idea how Bruce had spotted it while walking. He wondered, idly, if he ought to have his own eyes checked. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone.

“What shall we do today, then?” Alfred asked, continuing to walk. “We’ll have the afternoon.”

They’d only gone a few more feet and Bruce had a long stick in his hands, from somewhere in the damp grass. He swung it idly, like a sword, while they approached the mailbox.

“I don’t know,” Bruce said. “Maybe a movie. Maybe read. I don’t really want to do anything.”

“We’ll let the day decide,” Alfred said, catching the stick on an upward swing. Bruce grinned and ducked, and twisted it back out of his grasp; he held it outstretched, dramatically aimed at Alfred’s throat.

“Halt, ruffian,” he said rakishly.

“Let a poor peasant pass,” Alfred replied without pause, his hands up in surrender.

The stick dropped and Bruce was suddenly serious and then looking off at the road.

“Would…would you…” he said, uncertain. “I’ve been…difficult. Lately. I’m sorry. You’re always so good to me. I don’t think I deserve it.”

“You didn’t deserve what happened yesterday, Master Bruce,” Alfred said, giving his shoulder a pat. “You’re rather much more deserving of kindness than you seem to think.”

Bruce didn’t look at him, but moved away and hurled the stick out into the field by the property fence. He fell in-step beside Alfred again and bumped the older man’s arm with his own.

“Thank you,” he said, so quiet it was nearly inaudible even in the morning air.

“Thank me by finishing off that bread today,” Alfred replied, linking his arm through Bruce’s. Bruce didn’t yank away, but pressed closer like he had when he’d been much younger. He didn’t let go until they were at the mailbox, where he stood sorting the mail into juggled piles.

Alfred pushed the messy hair off Bruce’s forehead, smiled when Bruce ducked his head away and mussed his hair again on purpose. Alfred accepted the pile of bills; Bruce kept the bookseller’s catalog and began flipping through it as they ambled back to the Manor.

“Oh, they have a new binding of Christie,” Bruce said, his nose buried in the catalog. “A whole set. Aren’t we missing one?”

“One I believe a certain young man ruined,” Alfred said, amused. “An absence we ought to rectify.”

“I was distracted,” Bruce said, unbothered. “I had my reasons.”

Alfred picked up the pace and enjoyed the warming sun on his back, the chirping of robins nearby, the boy at his side.

The world was full of ills and hurting hearts, but they could find a small refuge in the company of the day.


End file.
